PERSPECTIVES ON THE FIRES : EYEWITNESS: W. W. WILMS : Topanga’s Wonderful Way of Life Is Worth the Risk : Fires and floods are calamities that come with the restorative qualities of nature; so, yes, people will rebuild.

I felt like a traitor the day of the fire, having gotten my cats and my book manuscript and computer and taken off. You want to stay and help, but I’m not sure what I could have done.

About 10:15 a.m., the power went out--I was home writing--and so I switched over to the battery in my laptop computer. Then I heard helicopters and looked out of my window to the west and could see this column of smoke going thousands of feet into the air. As you looked down closer to the ridge line, it was a dream scene out of a Kurosawa movie. I was startled by the realization that as you looked down the column of smoke toward the ground, it became brown and then it became red, and I grasped the enormity of what was heading our way.

I talked to a neighbor who was wearing a hard hat and pruning back his bushes. Others were rushing back to get pets, and people were zooming down to Old (Topanga) Canyon Road in tears and a woman drove by and said, “Get out! Get out! The fire’s here!” I didn’t know if it was going to take my house or not, but I was fatalistic at that moment.

When I saw that wall of black smoke that turned into red on the horizon that’s just over the hill, I knew there was nothing I could do. My house is old dry wood that’s been there for 50 years, and it would simply explode when the flames got close enough. There’s no possibility of saving the house if the fire came my way. I’ve had my brush cleared back to the required limit, trimmed the trees up to 40 feet and had a fire-retardant roof installed. But the whole canyon is a tinderbox because of the dead chaparral that has been accumulating for years.

You could predict it from last week--all these smoldering fires, and once the Santa Anas started again . . . And if these are crazies (setting the fires), I think they ought to be taken out and have their fingers set on fire.

But we were not well-organized, and that’s what I’m sad about. In our little neighborhood, we did not have a good network of phone numbers and knowing who had pets and children and who was where. I think it takes something like this horrible fire to drive it into your head. I know there are going to be some changes I make when I go back there.

The firefighters did their jobs heroically, but we’ve got to take responsibility for what we can control. One of our neighbors tried to establish a network, but until this tragedy hit, the rest of us were pretty nonchalant. But when I was driving out and I saw the stricken faces of people driving in to look after their houses, it really brings it home.

I have absolutely no thought about not moving back. Sure, there are dangers. The next danger is that after a big fire like this, there will be a big flood because the plants that hold the earth together are going to be burned. So there will be mudslides, but that’s just a fact of life there and I knew it moving in five years ago. It was a calculated risk.

You have to take a flexible attitude to the vicissitudes of life. I started thinking about what I should take from the house, like my old grandfather’s clock, and you don’t know where to stop, so I just kissed it goodby and said I hope I come back and find you here.

I think there are some precautions we can take as neighbors--insisting that the county burn back all the dieback and chaparral in the parts where people don’t live, up toward the ridges. I think that can all be burned back with very little danger, but as I understand, some property owners have objected to that in the past. Maybe now they will see the necessity of such preventive measures.

Why do I want to live in Topanga? That’s easy. All you have to do is fly into LAX from the north on a clear night and you see this black patch in the zillions of lights, and that is the Santa Monica Mountains, where a handful of people live with coyotes and bobcats and owls and hawks and birds. It’s relatively uninhabited and you live side by side with nature. It’s a wonderful area--the sense of community is the closest I’ve found in Southern California.

Absolutely, I would rebuild if it burns down. It’s a wonderful spot--it’s right in your heart. You can’t get a place like this anywhere in Southern California. I bet if you talk to anyone up there, you’ll get the same reaction. Topanga has a wonderful way of life.

The night before the fire, I went home from work at dusk and there’s a big old owl sitting in the tree, and I stopped, turned the light off and talked to him a little bit. It’s a real different sort of place. I had a bobcat look in the French door in my bedroom the other morning and just keep on going. Sure, I’ve lost a cat to the coyotes, but you try to achieve a live-and-let-live balance with nature. When I go home and turn off PCH up Topanga Canyon, get my feet on some real earth, it’s restorative. I don’t know any other word to use.